Bonds
by Batcee
Summary: She seethes as his words ring with sense and logic and settles on the pout that never even works with her own two boys and yet she still can't stop trying with everyone else. NarutoIno friend fic. SasuSaku, ShikaIno, NaruHina hints.


_A/N: Been feeling nostalgic about the good old days and the beginnings of things, so I decided to repost some old work. Hope you enjoy. This one didn't even get minor editing, so please read and review if you see anything that needs my attention!_

* * *

><p><strong>Bonds<strong>

He intrudes into her newly-found personal sanctuary loudly and with no apology or anything remotely resembling one. She looks up to glare, narrow perfectly perfected eyebrows, and maybe twist those pretty lips into a scowl, but his expression stops her, a mixture of slight surprise and more misery that looks handsome and wrong on his tan skin.

"Oh," he kinda says before plopping down, apparently a little off-ways from where he had intended to sit. Immediately after this, he begins pulling grass out of the manicured lawn and tossing clumps of packed dirt into the once smooth and picturesque pond before them. She endures the desecration—firstly, because it's not her lawn and the people who do own the lawn can more than afford to have it redone—until he manages to get a hairy tangle of thread-thin roots onto her pristine white dress.

"Naruto!" she warns gratingly.

"Oh," he kind of says again, and he still hasn't met her eyes. His square hand—she notices with disdain the dirt under his fingernails—reaches out, maybe to brush the debris away, but his fingers curl quickly into a fist and disappear on the other side of his legs.

She watches this with raised eyebrows and then shifts closer to press her curvy figure against his side. He tenses with discomfort and they both watch the water's ripples fade away.

Naruto is a strange boy, she muses. For whatever reason, he's always been shunned by their whole village for years and it's never once taken that smile off of his face. Yet one stupid thing like…well. It's just stupid that _today_ he'd decide to go down for the count.

_Like me…_she thinks morosely.

She sighs, causing two electric blue eyes to fasten on her profile with frightening earnest. Enduring them is only a quick defeat for her and she turns with her own fiery baby blues blazing. It's funny, how despite the lack of moonlight tonight, both of their eyes are so bright.

"What?" she hisses. "What, Naruto? What!"

He smiles, just a tad. "Happy Birthday, Ino-chan."

There's a short scoffing laugh that escapes her throat without her consent. It mars the beautifully meant statement beyond salvaging. He sighs and frown lines streak across his forehead.

"I take it you saw?" she finally states in a gorgeous, deep voice. "Great, isn't it? Just…great."

"It's your party—"

"And I'll cry if I want to!" Horrid giggles escape this time.

"You're not crying," he observes, not the least bit miffed that she cut him off. He'll have his say. "I guess that means you don't want to."

"Geez, Naru. You are horrible at cheering a girl up."

"Honestly, Ino," his voice changes to something a little bit lighter, with a darker intent. "I didn't really come out here to cheer you up."

His abrupt reversal from charming child to crabby adult—one very much like herself—stuns the cynical smile off her face.

"Oh, yeah?" She can't resist challenging; it's not in her nature to back down.

"I came out because I wanted too, and then I found you and decided to bring you back because you're absence is upsetting Hinata-chan, who worked really hard on everything for your special day."

"Some special day."

"I thought everything was going fine." He half-shrugs.

"I saw your face, Naruto-_kun_." She emphasizes where she shouldn't. But she's in the mood to inflict pain. She always is when she's hurt. "It wasn't so different from my own."

Naruto gives her a fuller smile this time, the kind he gives his enemies right before he beats them all the way down, goes in for the kill. "Just because Sasuke-teme and Sakura-chan left a little while ago, together and early, doesn't really mean anything, right? But who am I kidding? Except, you and I both know it does. And we've known for a while, haven't we?" He ignores how her eyes widen. "You don't really care as much as you think you do. Or as much as you'd want to. You're just upset that people seem to be moving on. Well, here's what I have to say, and it's not really nice, so don't get too mad. Grow up, Ino. You're not twelve anymore and just as obviously as the bastard isn't in love with you; you're not in love with him."

"What would you know?" she nearly screeches. "Mr. Sakura-Chan-Is-My-Sunshine! Mr. Risks-Life-And-Limb-To-See-Sakura-Chan-Smile! You're one to talk!"

At this, her companion has the audacity, the raw nerve to grin at her! "It was hardly a mortal risk," he chuckles, "the whole Sasuke thing. I can handle him just fine. And that wasn't for Sakura-chan, you know. That was for my team, something I think you can relate to. At least I know that I am not in love with her, even if I do love her."

She seethes as his words ring with sense and logic and settles on the pout that never even works with her own two boys and yet she still can't stop trying with everyone else. It only seems to amuse him, as he notes that Sakura must have picked it up from her best friend or vice-versa. "Then what are you doing out here?" she asks. "Sulking and acting pissy with me?"

"Hinata explained the concept of the 'third wheel' to me. And even though it works just fine for wheelbarrows, she's right. Not so much with people. So, I'm reworking team balance that's just been recently redone. It's hard! Not fun!"

He grins again and this time his motive is to cheer her up. It works somewhat.

"So tell me, o wise one, who am I in love with?"

He looks surprised. "Do you always have to be in love with someone? Well, if I had to guess, I'd say you're best bet is me."

"You? You! Are you kidding?"

"What? I'm sexy! Next Hokage here! Think of the power. Chicks dig power."

She even laughs.

They sit for a few more minutes in an easier silence, her head on his loosened shoulder. When he moves and gets up, reaching a hand down to assist her, she gives him an inquisitive glance.

"Time to go in, Party-Girl. We've been awhile and I think I'm done with this all."

There's a flash of teasing in her eyes when she responds. "I thought you didn't come out here to cheer me up."

"Didn't. _I_ feel better. You're just the bonus."

"Thanks." She brushes off the remaining dirt and ladybugs off her dress, and frowns at a small green grass stain and the hem, pretending to study it when she continues, "You know, Naruto, you're that brother that a girl never gets and always wants."

There's a pause and she's trying too hard to control her blush to see a similar one cross his face alongside an ecstatic, appreciative wonder.

"There goes our budding relationship!" he exclaims scratching the back of is head.

"In your dreams!" she shoots back.

"Ino?" This time his fingers make it all the way to her forearm before they recede. "Just, you know, have a good time. Open your eyes some and look around and stuff."

"It was easier before," she admits with a wry smile. "I just thought…I don't know what I was thinking."

Naruto nods and walks her to the sliding glass door that will lead them back into the party with a burst of confetti and noise. He lets her slide it open and in the few precious seconds before they are swept away by the masses, he mumbles, "You and Sasuke were always the prettiest, most popular ones and me and Sakura-chan, you know…we were the ones kind of…well, we were pretty much the opposite of you and Sasuke-teme. It was easy to make connections like that. Based on the outside." She steps into the golden room right before he does and he shuts the cool, fresh air out with the pane of glass.

A warm hand slips around her wrist and a distinctive, low voice calls out her name.

"Shikamaru!"

"Are you alright, Ino?"

"Yes, uh…well, I…"

Naruto comes up and pats her shoulder lightly while answering for her with a grin. "We got lost outside, when we should have been inside, but I guess you have to be outside to get inside in the first place, ne, Shikamaru? You're a genius; you understand, right? Well…hey! Hinata-chan! Let me help you with that!" And with that, he's quickly lost in the crowd.

"What?" Shikamaru shakes his head in confusion.

Ino just grins. The inside, huh? She can work with that.

_.:Living life in pairs…:._


End file.
